Posted on 09/05/2008 9:05:49 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
California schools, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to lift more students over a higher academic hurdle this year, instead stumbled and slipped back, as nearly 1,400 fewer schools met test-score targets.
The number of schools making "adequate yearly progress" plunged from 6,488 to 5,113 since last year, according to state educators who released school progress reports Thursday.
That's a drop from 67 to 52 percent of the state's public schools.
Officials said more schools faltered because No Child Left Behind requires a higher percentage of their students this year to have proficient scores in English and math on statewide exams - 35 percent of students this year from about 25 percent last year.
And it's only going to get tougher. The percentage of students who must do well on the tests will rise steadily each year until 2014, when all students will be required to score at the proficient level in English and math - hence the name "No Child Left Behind."
It could spell trouble for every school in the state.
"We know that if you're not over this bar now, it's going to become very difficult," said state Superintendent Jack O'Connell, adding that he has yet to see any school where all students score proficient in math and English.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I know.
Let’s toss even more and more money at the schools and the thugs who run the unions and school boards.
That’ll fix it.
This is an easily-solved problem: just lower the standard of proficiency. That’s what other states are doing.
Or, we could just end the whole charade of NCLB and flush it down the potty where it belongs.
We didn't have to learn a second language in grammar school. Why??? This is the USA and English was the common bond.
I just received a decision back on a case that went through 20 days of trial concerning a completely incompetent teacher, and the panel ruled against my client, ignoring a mountain load of evidence. I now know what it feels like to be Christopher Darden.
We have a disgusting, crappy system of terminating teachers in California, where all of the laws bend over backwards to protect teachers. The teacher’s union has succeeded in making their teachers virtually bullet proof.
Is it any wonder our students test scores suck so much?
Here is some food for thought:
As test scores approach 100%, you have to increase the difficulty of the test because too many passing makes the test invalid. Any test must have some fail to keep it fair. That is why not every one who goes to medical school becomes a physician.
100% will never happen as long as you have kids with IQ’s of less than 70 expected to score the exact same as the valedictorian.
I grant you that, but there are one heck of a lot of good teachers out there. They outnumber the bad ones by a lot.
Most of the responsibility has to fall on the parents of the students. A teacher can only do so much. He or she can’t force the child to study or do homework. But everyone blames the teachers.
I can’t figure out why conservatives haven’t come forward and told teachers that they’re not to blame for the low scores. It probably wouldn’t matter.
- John
It’s a shared effort, all parties involved are ‘to blame’ if you will, and for different reasons. I agree there are a lot of good teachers caught up amidst the political and social battles that rage between unions, boards and politicos.
Regardless, the cumulative effect is some kids do well and others struggle.
The public education system is not a one size fits all or throw more money at it ‘til the problem goes away operation... tho both precepts still apply at many schools.
—
The San Diego Union-Tribune has this take
12 comeback campuses in county taken off watch list
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20080905-9999-1n5api.html
A dozen local schools received confirmation yesterday that they’ve beaten the odds.
Years of low state test scores had landed them on a federal watch list that some say brands schools as failing. Not many schools get off the list.
These did.
They are San Diego County’s comeback campuses. Federal report cards released statewide cleared them from the list and ended federally ordered remedies to boost their pass rates on state tests.
Other local watch-list schools changed curriculum or hired turn-around principals, but these comeback campuses focused on areas such as improving test scores and addressing individual students’ needs. The stakes were high: The schools risked losing students because they all had to send letters to parents inviting them to switch to a school that had better scores.
Thanks for the link.
That’s because you can’t legislate success.
You can’t make a law that all 8th graders will know algebra. They won’t. Some kids don’t want to. Some parents don’t support. And some kids can’t.
You can’t make a law that all cars have to get 100 mph. We’d all love it. But if the technology isn’t there, it isn’t. A decree doesn’t make it so.
You can’t make a law that everyone gets $100 an hour. The economy won’t support it, and in the best case scenario, the money would just become worthless. We’d all make $100 and hour and a loaf of bread would cost $75. So we are all just as poor.
Good outcomes can not be legislated. Bad behavior can be punished, good behavior can be rewarded. That helps. But you can’t just by fiat decree that all things will be just so.
That’s a very interesting article, and I agree with much of it (not all) but I’d like to point out that, contrary to what the article says, “learning disabled” students must pass the same tests as other students.
A certain percentage of severely retarded students are allowed to take alternative tests, but there is a strict percentage, so there is no advantage to the school in having more students labeled as retarded.
In fact, in our state, the net result so far has been fewer children labeled as special ed, since they have to take and pass the same tests as everyone else anyway. Also, it’s quite difficult to find special education teachers who are also considered “highly qualified” in each academic area.
It’s not the good teachers I deal with. I know there’s good ones, but you can’t get rid of the bad ones.
And to have a system that doesn’t encourage competition means there are a lot of them out there that just skate by, because there’s nothing to keep them on their toes.
It’s a complete joke.
My kids will never go to a public school until college.
How would you encourage competition?
I know states vary as to policies, compensation, union involvement, etc....so I can only speak to what I know in my state...
In my state there are public and private schools. The public schools generally offer much better pay and benefits, but some people prefer to teach at private schools for religious reasons, because private schools enforce better behavior, or because private schools don't have to accept poorly performing students.
That said, there are almost always openings for public school teachers -- in fact, there are more jobs available than there are qualified teachers to fill them, which results in less-qualified people being hired so there will be someone in the classroom.
I've been told that in some areas of the country it is very difficult to get a job as a teacher, so I'd guess there is more competition there.
How do you increase competition for teaching jobs?
ping!
The first thing to encourage competition is to have freedom of choice in schools and a voucher system. That would allow people to move their kids out of non-performing schools and into schools that are performing.
Once that is done, there should be an accountability to the teachers that are in non-performing schools. I don’t know how you do that with the entitlement system that teachers now have, but it’s long overdue. It’s absolutely a political fireball in California, but I sure would like to see somebody smack down the teachers’ union. They have way too much power.
I think if you have a true freedom of choice system, it would become much clearer whether schools and their teachers are really doing the job, and hopefully the bad ones face the consequences.
A county next door has several schools that didn't meet standards under NCLB (AYP - adequate yearly progress), and a few that do. Under the law, students at the schools that didn't make AYP can transfer to the schools that did, but the problem is that the "good" schools don't have enough physical space for all the students who want to transfer, so they are having to move in portables. Of course, they are also going to need more teachers at the good schools, and I don't know where those will come from, unless it's from the failing schools.
There are some counties that really can't do that, because either there is only one (failing) school in the county, or all the schools failed.
I suppose other counties might take the students, but there would have to be some sort of funding arrangements, because I'm pretty sure the taxpayers in the counties with the good schools wouldn't want to fund the education of students from other counties, or have overcrowding in their schools.
How would you structure vouchers? In that same county there are several excellent private schools, but most of them cost 50%-100% more than the county spends per student, IIRC.
Once that is done, there should be an accountability to the teachers that are in non-performing schools. I don’t know how you do that with the entitlement system that teachers now have, but it’s long overdue.
I know that there are some teachers who are incompetent, but do you have a surplus of good teachers in California? My state does not.
If you get rid of the bad teachers, who will you replace them with? That is my question - how do you make teaching more desirable as a career for bright people who would be good teachers?
As a classroom teacher, I am doing my part. I come to class prepared, motivate, teach clearly, coach, cajole, push, demand hard work, and we will see later this spring if we get the required results. In our school the api went up this year, thanks to a principal and staff who are working their you know whats off.
As far as finding more competent teachers, when I left engineering to teach, many engineers told me that they too would like to pursue teaching. There is the competent pool. (Of course there is a shortage of engineers too, but it will solve itself because the salaries are competitive.) The engineers are afraid to leave their well paying jobs for something they might really like (and be good at) because of the salary cut they would receive. Its pretty clear that allowing school principals to negotiate on the basis of salary would solve the problem, and why would the teacher’s union oppose this? Principals should be able to offer a stipend (amount unknown to the rank and file union member) on top of the silly senority scale that schools use because of the union. The dearth of unskilled teachers would be solved in a season.
Also...since, according to you, vouchers and government school choice will be such a failure, the NEA has nothing to lose...soooo...Why all the NEA opposition to them?
I think that's a good option...some teaching fields have a shortage, while some do have a glut. Allowing extra pay for those in shortage fields might help. Of course, principals would need to have a source of funds for those stipends - would local, state, or federal governments provide those funds?
Is there a cap on charters in your state? I have no problem with charter schools, although some appear to be more successful than others. Some charters I really like, but the most successful charter schools seem to depend on parental support.
Also...since, according to you, vouchers and government school choice will be such a failure,
If you read my post, I didn't say they would fail all children, but that I see significant practical problems in vouchers and choice being THE answer for all children. I notice you have not addressed the practical problems I pointed out.
...the NEA has nothing to lose...soooo...Why all the NEA opposition to them?
I've never claimed to speak for the NEA. I can only guess that either they oppose any possible chinks in their control (in states they do control) or that they see the same practical problems I do -- or maybe some combination of the above.
Get rid of the union requirements that teachers must have education courses to teach. Private schools have no such requirements and can better teachers with better credentials. Hell, Carl Sagan [when he was alive] wouldn't be able to teach a high school astronomy course.
My state is taking steps in that direction by allowing people with a bachelor's degree to begin teaching, and to become certified by taking a minimum number of education courses.
I'm not sure if there have been any studies on how many teachers have been recruited in this manner, how well these teachers do compared to those who are certified in the traditional manner, or if there is a nationwide trend in this direction.
My sister teaches refugees (primarily Somali). She says a Somali child here for 3 months has to pass the same test as a native born.
There is a lot to criticize in our public schools, and my sister hates the school administration in the city where she lives - but it also doesn’t make sense to test people at levels they haven’t been trained to achieve.
One school she mentioned had almost 100% turn-over in students in just one academic year.
Skimming a few results in southern Arizona, schools with lots of whites and few students getting free school lunches do quite well. Those with a lot of hispanics and a lot of students getting free lunches do poorly. Wonder why - and no, it isn’t skin color...
"In some cases, the gap between the cities, with their large concentrations of working class and poor residents, and the suburbs is even greater. The widest discrepancies cited in the report are in Baltimore, Maryland, where only 34.6 percent of public high school students graduate, and its suburbs, where 81.5 percent acquire diplomas after four years, and in Columbus, Ohio, with a graduation rate of 40.9 percent as compared to 82.9 percent in the suburbs.
The city-suburb split is also immense in such metropolitan centers as New York (47.4 percent vs. 82.9 percent), Cleveland (42.2 percent vs. 78.1 percent), Philadelphia (49.2 percent vs. 82.4 percent), Chicago (55.7 percent vs. 84.1 percent), Los Angeles (57.1 percent vs. 77.9 percent), and Atlanta (46.1 percent vs. 61.8 percent)
Detroit, by many calculations the poorest US city, graduates less than 25 percent (24.9 percent) of its public high school students. Indianapolis Public Schools graduate 30.5 percent of their students, and the figures for the Cleveland Municipal City School District and the Baltimore City Public School System are 34.1 percent and 34.6 percent respectively.
>Or, we could just end the whole charade of NCLB and flush it down the potty where it belongs
WTF? The “charade” is even calling the public school system “education.”
Get rid of THAT and lets talk.
superb post.
They would if they want to see teaching improve. I know of no community that is doing it, but I teach with many here in Silicon Valley who have experience in the business world, by and large they bring a fresh prospective to teaching and are some of the strongest teachers we have.
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